Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an electronic album creating apparatus and to a method of creating an electronic album.
Description of the Related Art
An electronic album is an album that enables a number of images captured by a digital camera to be enjoyed in the same manner as a photograph album made of paper. Although a number of images are assigned automatically to each page constituting the electronic album to thereby create the album, there are occasions where the images of a specific individual become large or small in number. For this reason, there is a system adapted so as to create an electronic album that will not include images weighted toward those of a specific individual (Patent Document 1). Further, there is a system in which when a search word is designated, a person related to the designated search word is retrieved (Patent Document 2); a system that extracts a community having a relationship based upon a common topic (Patent Document 3); a system that retrieves photographs efficiently from parameters obtained by quantifying the degree of intimacy among people (Patent Document 4); a system that eliminates bias in terms of composition (Patent Document 5); and a system that facilitates the selection of images by a user (Patent Document 6).
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2010-57073
Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2009-48385
Patent Document 3: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-107867
Patent Document 4: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-41964
Patent Document 5: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2012-23501
Patent Document 6: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2010-14112
However, the system described in Patent Document 1 merely prevents the number of images of a specific individual contained in an electronic album from becoming large or small. When an attempt is made to create an electronic album of a family, therefore, there are instances where, on average, images other than those of the family happen to be included in the album. In Patent Documents 2 to 6 as well, no consideration is given to the creation of an electronic album that contains the images of a family.